


Razor

by odoridango



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:38:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin, Eren, and three dead bodies. When Armin kills a person for the first time, Eren is not there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Razor

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this written up for a while, but only now decided to post it. Was written for Armin and Eren Week with the prompt of first time.
> 
> This addresses Armin's first kill, the female soldier that almost shot Jean while Levi Squad 2.0 was being chased by Kenny in the manga.

When Armin kills someone for the first time, Eren is not there.

Granted, the opposite is also true. Armin wasn’t there when Eren made his first and second kills in rapid succession. In fact, he didn’t know about it until almost a week afterward when Eren, wary and anxious, knocked on their door and Armin’s grandfather let him in.

“I have a new sister,” he blurted out to Armin, once Armin sat him on the bed. His skin had a gray tinge to it, dark smudges ringing his eyes, and the skin around his nail beds was picked away. His fingers twisted together uneasily.

Eren had barreled on before Armin could even get a word in edgewise, spilling out messily, unflatteringly. “She’s adopted,” Eren said, grabbing at Armin’s arms with shaking hands, desperately searching Armin’s gaze for something unidentifiable. “She adopted because her family was killed by slavers, and because I found her with the slavers, and killed two of them.”

“Killed...?” Armin didn’t draw back, but it was a near thing, and his gasp was preternaturally loud in the confines of the room.

“I lured them out,” Eren continued, and he was shivering, his entire body jittering uncontrollably, fat tears pooling at the corner of his eyes. “I pretended I was lost, and when he came out to speak to me I went at him, got him in the chest with a knife tied to a broom handle. They didn’t expect a single thing, it was just so easy to crawl on him and raise the knife and bring it down over and over and over—“

Eren is protector. Eren is friend. Eren is confidant, and he was always so, so big to Armin. But crumpled in his arms like that Eren had seemed so small and vulnerable, and Armn hadn’t had any idea of what to do except to draw him close, rest his cheek against the head of warm brown hair, stare wide-eyed at the walls of his room as he let his thoughts throw themselves wildly at each other.

Mercifully, Eren didn’t cry, but he made noises close to sobs, the sounds of  wounded, dying animals. “Am I bad, Armin?” he whimpered, burying his face in Armin’s soft sweater, shaking shoulder seemingly fragile under Armin’s hands. “Am I bad? Are the Military Police going to take me away? Is there something wrong with me?”

Armin didn’t have answers, just let Eren cling to him, ran his hands through Eren’s hair and unconsciously made hushing noises. “You’re not bad Eren,” he said, putting as much confidence in the words as he could, despite his uncertainty, “You’re good to me. You’re always good to me. And when you make mistakes you always say sorry.”

“But I killed someone,” Eren said, gripping at Armin’s shirt, “I was so angry, like I couldn’t think or see straight. And afterward I said beasts like them didn’t deserve to live.” He wouldn’t look Armin in the eye. “And I think I believe it. I think I don’t feel sorry.”

Eren is not here to tell him it’s okay. That’s alright, because Mikasa is here, and Mikasa understands. She watches over him, talks to him, tries to distract him when she can, and he appreciates it, he does. And he knows it was the soldier or Jean. In some ways, not a choice at all, even less so now that Eren is within reach.

Eren doesn’t tell him anything now. He lingers like a faded shadow, attentive to Captain Levi’s and Commander Hanji’s orders, still trades insults with Jean like it’s going out of style, but otherwise, he’s subdued. At least he is sleeping in the same room as all the other boys now, just like old times, but he seeks Armin out to hold his hand for minutes at a time, to sidle close, shoulder to shoulder. But not to speak. Not to talk.

When Armin killed someone for the first time, he did not feel angry. He felt sorry, but honestly, it was a selfish type of a guilt, not for the soldier he shot but for himself. For getting his hands dirty, for the principle of a life.

If he grasps for it long enough, Armin might be able to summon the memory of Eren’s hand in his, the one he thinks of as his some days because Eren gave it up for him. The warmth and the shape, the smooth skin. He wonders if Eren does the same, remember Armin’s touch, and the heat and comfort of his hands.

“Am I bad?” Armin would ask him, like Eren asked him back then. Would he be bad for thinking of sacrifices, of mass casualties, of plans that could and would wipe towns off the map for the sake of their advancement?

But Eren doesn’t talk to him much these days. Maybe there’s nothing to tell.


End file.
